Charge of the Princess Brigade

As I stated before, Disney Princess Merchandise is the fastest growing segment of sales for the Disney Company. The Princess phenomenon is raking in big bucks and the powers that be know it.

”The princess brand is all about fantasy,” adds Mary Beech, director of franchise management for Disney Princess. “It’s transformational and allows the girls to be in charge, and in real life, children aren’t in charge of very much.”

The list of recent movies tapping into this is long and includes Disney’s “Ella Enchanted,” “The Prince & Me,” “A Cinderella Story” and now “Princess Diaries 2″. What suprises me is that we don’t see much of this movement coming from the feature or even television animation departments. Ariel and Belle were the prototypes for todays Disney Princess wannabes, but they get no airplay today. Nor is any animated film in production, that I know about, that would tap into this movement. Seems like another missed opportunity to me.

Here’s my favorite quote from the story:

”The princess is the last frontier of acceptable girliness. It points to how crazy our times have become that I, as a feminist, am promoting princess culture because, hey, at least you don’t have a 12-year-old wearing a thong.”